Potential Delay to v44.1 Launch
We are currently working through some issues that may affect the release window of v44.1. This means that the update may not release on Monday as it usually does. We are working to resolve the issue holding us up as quickly as possible, but will keep you all updated, especially if the delay results in any changes to the content release schedule.
We are currently working through some issues that may affect the release window of v44.1. This means that the update may not release on Monday as it usually does. We are working to resolve the issue holding us up as quickly as possible, but will keep you all updated, especially if the delay results in any changes to the content release schedule.
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All these, including Necropolis timers, are simply mechanics in the game, to make it a game, and to make it challenging and rewarding.
Overall, challenging and rewarding are very subjective, so that might make the mechanic feel 'anti-player' to you, as opposed to a mechanic you can engage with and overcome.
To your last question, what would happen if they didn't put this mechanic in?
1. Players would complete/explored Necropolis simply by putting in marathon sessions, be done quickly, and feel like they have nothing to do (something that took Kabam a decent amount of time to develop as everest content).
2. Players would finish a single 3 hour fight against, let's say Diablo. Because there is no time limit, Diablo keeps regenerating, and players can typically keep their health up, they can keep fighting Diablo for hours. Instead of giving up and coming back with a different counter, the player just persists with their champion.
There are other reasons one could list as well, but the best example I could give is: Without certain mechanics, Necropolis becomes ROL - boring, feels like a slog, and something players are not excited to do.
Great job trying to twist it.
Its clearly anti-player and there is no other excuse for it.
AW isn't PvP because you're not actually playing against the summoner of the defender. You're playing against A.I.
AW and AQ fight timers will time you out resulting in loss of half your remaining life above 3%.
BG timers end the match but don't cost you loss of health.
Timers for AoL, LoL and Necro don't kill you. It just makes the fight harder. In Necro, the defender just goes unblockable in addition to the root from the first timer.
I grew up playing video games in arcades, where you had to actually pay a quarter just to play at all. The original pay to play scheme. And if you were not good at it, your quarter would last you about two minutes. Adjusted for inflation, we were spending a dollar a play in those early days. We had to play just to learn the game. To practice the game. To get good at it.
I moved on to PC home games where you had to buy games almost sight unseen and just figure them out. No internet, no discussion groups, just you and the game and a manual translated from its original Klingon.
Before moving to mobile games, I spend the 00s playing MMOs. In one game I played the top tier end game content was updated, and about forty of us all moved onto a single server shard to discuss and test strategies for beating it. We spent a week on it, then went back to our home servers to try to get it done. The team I led on my server was only the third group to beat it, and it took us two weeks of trial and error to get it done.
I remember that time I got the all time high score in Moon Patrol that stood until a power outage knocked it off the high score board. I remember the day I beat Ultima IV, the day I learned how to rocket jump in Doom, the first time Triumph took down the Hamidon in City of Heroes, the first time I ever soloed the Borg incursion in STO, the day I cleared RoL in MCOC.
Those things only matter to me, they are only memorable, because they were difficult. Because the game created an environment where success was not guaranteed, where failure was not just an option, it was the most likely option. They were all accomplishments. The difficulty in those games did not exist to negatively impact me as a player. They were what made the game worth playing. That feeling of playing for an hour on a single quarter, that feeling of being one of the first anywhere in the world to beat a thing, or just the feeling of doing something that is genuinely difficult at the time and joining the ranks of those who persevered to do it, those are irreplaceable feelings.
One day, hopefully not soon, this game will be gone. All this stuff will be gone. All the things that time and the money acquired will be gone, and the only thing left will be memories and experiences. They are the only permanent things this game gives anyone. I've been there on the last day of a few games. I was there on crunch day for The Matrix Online. All I have is the memory of probably being one of the first players to coin the phrase "chicklet combat" to describe how melee originally worked. I've been playing this game for over eight years. I've literally fought hundreds of thousands of fights. I don't even remember a tenth of a percent of any of them. But I'm going to remember the Collector. I'm going to remember Ice Phoenix. Unblockable Guillotine, the 6.2 Champion, the Grandmaster, the Summer of Pain, the Grandmaster's Gauntlet, that Valkyrie in Necropolis.
None of those things negatively impacted me, they gave me something. They gave me something to beat. I am not the best player in this game by a wide margin, but I eventually figured out ways to beat them all, and that's why I play the game. Not because I win, but because the game challenges me to find ways to win.
Maybe I'm just a dinosaur. Maybe to see challenge as a plus and not a minus, you have to come from the generation of game players that used to get tangled up in their own phones.
It's not like you just hit some certain amount of charges, combo meter or some time limit and you just die.
Clearly you are just deadset on your 'anti-player' opinion, so I wish you good luck on your future endeavors.
(Sorry, the joke was there.)